The Painted Veil (8 page)

25

For a moment he was silent. Then he took her hand again and pressed it gently.

‘You know, darling,’ he said, ‘whatever happens we must keep Dorothy out of this.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘But I don’t understand. How can we?’

‘Well, we can’t only think of ourselves in this world. You know, other things being equal, there’s nothing in this world I’d love more than to marry you. But it’s quite out of the question. I know Dorothy: nothing would induce her to divorce me.’

Kitty was becoming horribly frightened. She began to cry again. He got up and sat down beside her with his arm round her waist.

‘Try not to upset yourself, darling. We
must
keep our heads.’

‘I thought you loved me ... ’

‘Of course I love you,’ he said tenderly. ‘You surely can’t have any doubt of that now.’

‘If she won’t divorce you Walter will make you corespondent.’

He took an appreciable time to answer. His tone was dry.

‘Of course that would ruin my career, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t do you much good. If the worst came to the worst I should make a clean breast of it to Dorothy; she’d be dreadfully hurt and wretched, but she’d forgive me.’ He had an idea. ‘I’m not sure if the best plan wouldn’t be to make a clean break of it anyhow. If she went to your husband I daresay she could persuade him to hold his tongue.’

‘Does that mean you don’t want her to divorce you?’

‘Well, I have got my boys to think of, haven’t I? And naturally I don’t want to make her unhappy. We’ve always got on very well together. She’s been an awfully good wife to me, you know.’

‘Why did you tell me that she meant nothing to you?’

‘I never did. I said I wasn’t in love with her. We haven’t slept together for years except now and then, on Christmas Day for instance, or the day before she was going home or the day she came back. She isn’t a woman who cares for that sort of thing. But we’ve always been excellent friends. I don’t mind telling you that I depend on her more than any one has any idea of.’

‘Don’t you think it would have been better to leave me alone then?’

She found it strange that with terror catching her breath she could speak so calmly.

‘You were the loveliest little thing I’d seen for years. I just fell madly in love with you. You can’t blame me for that.’

‘After all, you said you’d never let me down.’

‘But, good God, I’m not going to let you down. We’ve got in an awful scrape and I’m going to do everything that’s humanly possible to get you out of it.’

‘Except the one obvious and natural thing.’

He stood up and returned to his own chair.

‘My dear, you must be reasonable. We’d much better face the situation frankly. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but really I must tell you the truth. I’m very keen on my career. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be a Governor one of these days, and it’s a damned soft job to be a Colonial Governor. Unless we can hush this up I don’t stand a dog’s chance. I may not have to leave the service, but there’ll always be a black mark against me. If I do have to leave the service then I must go into business in China where I know people. In either case my only chance is for Dorothy to stick to me.’

‘Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?’

The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.

‘Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.’

‘Didn’t you mean them?’

‘At the moment.’

‘And what’s to happen to me if Walter divorces me?’

‘If we really haven’t a leg to stand on of course we won’t defend. There shouldn’t be any publicity and people are pretty broad-minded nowadays.’

For the first time Kitty thought of her mother. She shivered. She looked again at Townsend. Her pain now was tinged with resentment.

‘I’m sure you’d have no difficulty in bearing any inconvenience that I had to suffer,’ she said.

‘We’re not going to get much further by saying disagreeable things to one another,’ he answered.

She gave a cry of despair. It was dreadful that she should love him so devotedly and yet feel such bitterness towards him. It was not possible that he understood how much he meant to her.

‘Oh, Charlie, don’t you know how I love you?’

‘But, my dear, I love you. Only we’re not living in a desert island and we’ve got to make the best we can out of the circumstances that are forced upon us. You really must be reasonable.’

‘How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realise that to you it was only an episode.’

‘Of course it wasn’t an episode. But you know, when you ask me to get my wife, to whom I’m very much attached, to divorce me, and ruin my career by marrying you, you’re asking a good deal.’

‘No more than I’m willing to do for you.’

‘The circumstances are rather different.’

‘The only difference is that you don’t love me.’

‘One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.’

She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Oh, how cruel! How can you be so heartless?’

She began to sob hysterically. He gave an anxious glance at the door.

‘My dear, do try and control yourself.’

‘You don’t know how I love you,’ she gasped.
1
can’t live without you. Have you no pity for me?’

She could not speak any more. She wept without restraint.

‘I don’t want to be unkind and, Heaven knows I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I must tell you the truth.’

‘It’s the ruin of my whole life. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? What harm had I ever done you?’

‘Of course if it does you any good to put all the blame on me you may.’

Kitty blazed with sudden anger.

‘I suppose I threw myself at your head. I suppose I gave you no peace till you yielded to my entreaties.’

‘I don’t say that. But I certainly should never have thought of making love to you if you hadn’t made it perfectly clear that you were ready to be made love to.’

Oh, the shame of it! She knew that what he said was true. His face now was sullen and worried and his hands moved uneasily. Every now and then he gave her a little glance of exasperation.

‘Won’t your husband forgive you?’ he said after a while.

‘I never asked him.’

Instinctively he clenched his hands. She saw him suppress the exclamation of annoyance which came to his lips.

‘Why don’t you go to him and throw yourself on his mercy? If he’s as much in love with you as you say he’s bound to forgive you.’

‘How little you know him!’

26

She wiped her eyes. She tried to pull herself together.

‘Charlie, if you desert me I shall die.’

She was driven now to appeal to his compassion. She ought to have told him at once. When he knew the horrible alternative that was placed before her his generosity, his sense of justice, his manliness, would be so vehemently aroused that he would think of nothing but her danger. Oh, how passionately she desired to feel his dear, protecting arms around her!

‘Walter wants me to go to Meitan-fu.’

‘Oh, but that’s the place where the cholera is. They’ve got the worst epidemic that they’ve had for fifty years. It’s no place for a woman. You can’t possibly go there.’

‘If you let me down I shall have to.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

‘Walter is taking the place of the missionary doctor who died. He wants me to go with him.’

‘When?’

‘Now. At once.’

Townsend pushed back his chair and looked at her with puzzled eyes.

‘I may be very stupid, but I can’t make head or tail out of what you’re saying. If he wants you to go to this place with him what about a divorce?’

‘He’s given me my choice. I must either go to Meitan-fu or else he’ll bring an action.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Townsend’s tone changed ever so slightly. ‘I think that’s rather decent of him, don’t you?’

‘Decent?’

‘Well, it’s a damned sporting thing of him to go there. It’s not a thing I’d fancy. Of course he’ll get a C.M.G. for it when he comes back.’

‘But me, Charlie?’ she cried, with anguish in her voice.

‘Well, I think if he wants you to go, under the circumstances I don’t see how you can very well refuse.’

‘It means death. Absolutely certain death.’

‘Oh, damn it all, that’s rather an exaggeration. He would hardly take you if he thought that. It’s no more risk for you than for him. In point of fact there’s no great risk if you’re careful. I’ve been here when there’s been cholera and I haven’t turned a hair. The great thing is not to eat anything uncooked, no raw fruit or salads, or anything like that, and see that your drinking water is boiled.’ He was gaining confidence as he proceeded, and his speech was fluent; he was even becoming less sullen and more alert; he was almost breezy. ‘After all, it’s his job, isn’t it? He’s interested in bugs. It’s rather a chance for him if you come to think of it.’

‘But me, Charlie?’ she repeated, not with anguish now, but with consternation.

‘Well, the best way to understand a man is to put yourself in his shoes. From his point of view you’ve been rather a naughty little thing and he wants to get you out of harm’s way. I always thought he never wanted to divorce you, he doesn’t strike me as that sort of chap; but he made what he thought was a very generous offer and you put his back up by turning it down. I don’t want to blame you, but really for all our sakes I think you ought to have given it a little consideration.’

‘But don’t you see it’ll kill me? Don’t you know that he’s taking me there because he
knows
it’ll kill me.’

‘Oh, my dear, don’t talk like that. We’re in a damned awkward position and really it’s no time to be melodramatic.’

‘You’ve made up your mind not to understand.’ Oh, the pain in her heart, and the fear! She could have screamed. ‘You can’t send me to certain death. If you have no love or pity for me you must have just ordinary human feeling.’

‘I think it’s rather hard on me to put it like that. As far as I can make out your husband is behaving very generously. He’s willing to forgive you if you’ll let him. He wants to get you away and this opportunity has presented itself to take you to some place where for a few months you’ll be out of harm’s way. I don’t pretend that Meitan-fu is a health resort, I never knew a Chinese city that was, but there’s no reason to get the wind up about it. In fact that’s the worst thing you can do. I believe as many people die from sheer fright in an epidemic as because they get infected.’

‘But I’m frightened now. When Walter spoke of it I almost fainted.’

‘At the first moment I can quite believe it was a shock, but when you come to look at it calmly you’ll be all right. It’ll be the sort of experience that not every one has had.’

‘I thought, I thought...’

She rocked to and fro in an agony. He did not speak, and once more his face wore that sullen look which till lately she had never known. Kitty was not crying now. She was dry-eyed, calm, and though her voice was low it was steady.

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘It’s Hobson’s choice, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘It’s only fair to you to tell you that if your husband brought an action for divorce and won it I should not be in a position to marry you.’

It must have seemed an age to him before she answered. She rose slowly to her feet.

‘I don’t think that my husband ever thought of bringing an action.’

‘Then why in God’s name have you been frightening me out of my wits?’ he asked.

She looked at him coolly.

‘He knew that you’d let me down.’

She was silent. Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden a suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter’s mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.

‘He made that threat only because he knew that you’d crumple up at it, Charlie. It’s strange that he should have judged you so accurately. It was just like him to expose me to such a cruel disillusion.’

Charlie looked down at the sheet of blotting paper in front of him. He was frowning a little and his mouth was sulky. But he did not reply.

‘He knew that you were vain, cowardly and self-seeking. He wanted me to see it with my own eyes. He knew that you’d run like a hare at the approach of danger. He knew how grossly deceived I was in thinking that you were in love with me, because he knew that you were incapable of loving any one but yourself. He knew you’d sacrifice me without a pang to save your own skin.’

‘If it really gives you any satisfaction to say beastly things to me I suppose I’ve got no right to complain. Women always are unfair and they generally manage to put a man in the wrong. But there is something to be said on the other side.’

She took no notice of his interruption.

‘And now I know all that he knew. I know that you’re callous and heartless, I know that you’re selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven’t the nerve of a rabbit, I know you’re a liar and a humbug, I know that you’re utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is’ – her face was on a sudden distraught with pain – ‘the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.’

‘Kitty.’

She gave a bitter laugh. He had spoken her name in that melting, rich tone of his which came to him so naturally and meant so little.

‘You fool,’ she said.

He drew back quickly, flushing and offended; he could not make her out. She gave him a look in which there was a glint of amusement.

‘You’re beginning to dislike me, aren’t you? Well, dislike me. It doesn’t make any difference to me now.’

She began to put on her gloves.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Oh, don’t be afraid, you’ll come to no harm. You’ll be quite safe.’

‘For God’s sake, don’t talk like that, Kitty,’ he answered and his deep voice rang with anxiety. ‘You must know that everything that concerns you concerns me. I shall be frightfully anxious to know what happens. What are you going to say to your husband?’

‘I’m going to tell him that I’m prepared to go to Meitan-fu with him.’

‘Perhaps when you consent he won’t insist.’

He could not have known why, when he said this, she looked at him so strangely.

‘You’re not really frightened?’ he asked her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ve inspired me with courage. To go into the midst of a cholera epidemic will be a unique experience and if I die it – well, I die.’

‘I was trying to be as kind to you as I could.’

She looked at him again. Tears sprang into her eyes once more and her heart was very full. The impulse was almost irresistible to fling herself on his breast and crush her lips against his. It was no use.

‘If you want to know,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady, ‘I go with death in my heart and fear. I do not know what Walter has in that dark, twisted mind of his, but I’m shaking with terror. I think it may be that death will be really a release.’

She felt that she could not hold on to her self-control for another moment. She walked swiftly to the door and let herself out before he had time to move from his chair. Townsend gave a long sigh of relief. He badly wanted a brandy and soda.